Travis Haney at espn did an anonymous survey of coaches to ask what coaches/teams they wouldn't want to face in a playoff, and who they would like to play.

Shaw was mentioned as someone they did want to play:

2. David Shaw, Stanford

Shaw’s 34-7 record since taking over for Jim Harbaugh is pretty difficult to argue against. If you’re nit-picking, the Cardinal have lost two of their three BCS bowl appearances since Shaw was promoted. All three were one-score games, though, so how critical can you be?

But this specific exercise is about the playoff, not necessarily getting to it. So we’ll hear this coach out on Shaw.

“He’s stubborn,” he said. “He will go with something until it hurts him. They want to play their style no matter what, even if it isn’t working or it has stopped working. You’ve got to adapt. Harbaugh adapted. David hasn’t shown he will do that.”

Shaw is 41 years old and has won Pac-12 titles in two of his three seasons. He’s doing OK and still has time to learn.

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And I remember they brought Haney, the author, on espnradio that day to talk about the article and everybody was like how dare you say this about Shaw, that there was no merit to that coach's comment at all. Which, I don't understand how they could look at the big games Shaw has lost and not at least somewhat agree with the above quote.